Splintered soul
by AnonymousTurtleBird
Summary: Memories shape us into who we are but when Sakura's soul hasn't been wiped clean of her past life entirely, that tends to complicate things. Especially seeing as her past life was that of Izuna Uchiha.
1. Chapter 1

**PLEASE READ!**

 **I'll keep it short: I've released two stories at the same time but I will only continue the one with the most reviews (or views if they tie) in the first chapter. So if you like it please review.**

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'He ducked under a punch and directed his kunai under the arm, edge slicing into the pit, severing muscle from bone and rendering the limb useless. His opponent didn't scream instead he bit his agony down and fuelled his next strike with it, like a well-trained soldier. The hit to his chest connected and Izuna felt his ribcage rattle with its strength. Really well-trained. He cursed as he watched the enemy advance further on his unit. They were taking too much time neutralising the thread, _he_ was taking too much time.

A twinge in his eyes was all it took for his opponent to be engulfed in black fire. This time the man did scream because unlike normal fire, Amaterasu didn't choke people first as it produced no smoke, no it _ate_ its target alive. He didn't spare the man another glance nor his own comrade that fell beside him with various wicked kunai embedded in his body, there was no time, he would mourn the dead later. Kunai whistled in the air as they flew at him with great speed, he plucked a few crucial ones from the air and let the others fly by him or catch in his heavy leather bodice then he met another enemy's eyes and combusted him as well. Fast as lightning he drew his tanto off his back and plunged it into the stomach of a shinobi who had tried to sneak up behind him.

It was a kid barley twelve… Wait no… He didn't consider that a kid, he'd been fighting well before tha-'

Sakura woke with a strong twitch, the only sign she showed of the horror her sleep had been. She had long since gotten used to that, and this was by far one of the milder 'memories'. The worst where when her brothers died, she still couldn't quite stop the tears from coming when _those_ nightmares plagued her.

Breathing in slowly, she laid her duvet aside and stepped out of bed. She pushed her curtain up, checking the position of the sun, before silently letting it down again. It was around six, like usual. She settled at her desk and pulled out one of her many notebooks recording what she had seen in her sleep then she checked the detailed file she had on Izuna Uchiha to see if there was something new she learned here. There wasn't, she'd already known about Amaterasu and its terrifying scorching prowess.

A sigh escaped her lips, completely unprecedent off her. She never sighed, slouched or whined because she was disciplined and composed but… over time she had come to wonder just how much of that was her and how much of that was Izuna. After all, her parents didn't really know the meaning of the word discipline as Sakura was their only child and spoiled rotten.

It had taken her until she was nine to figure out something was wrong, that it happened around the same time her parents took her to a therapist for her 'nightmares' was no coincidence. Thank her lucky stars that it had been a civilian therapist, she didn't think that having a Yamanaka scope the inside of her head would have ended well for her.

Ever since then she had started writing down what she saw at night, trying to figure out what was wrong by herself. It had taken her awhile to learn his name, the one whose memories she shared. At first, she had believed Izuna Uchiha had been some sort of vengeful spirit, disrupting her sleep but that hadn't explained why she felt so hateful whenever she had looked up at Hokage mountain because those where her feelings… not dreams.

By now she was mostly convinced that rebirth was a possibility. The soul was supposed to be cleansed of its previous life, only for some reason that hadn't happened thoroughly enough with hers. Traces of Izuna still clung to her, that itself was a terrifying thought.

But if he was her and she was him, those memories, his influences, didn't mean her any harm because then he would be harming himself. At least that's what she told herself, the though bought her some form of mental peace.

She was still going to wreck the second's stony face one day… but nevermind that. Another glance at the sun told her it was time to get ready. She pulled one of her drawers open and took out her neatly folded headband, placing it on the sink before she got dressed. She couldn't forget to put it on, especially not today.

She checked herself in the mirror, trying to find the best way to wear it. Standardly it was displayed on the forehead and so she was naturally inclined to put it on that way, seeing as she didn't like standing out, at least not through such trivial means. But her hair was fashioned in a neat bun, not a hair out of place aside from her bangs and the few locks specifically trimmed the frame her face. As it stood, tying the knot at the back of her head would be awkward and the plate would cover her bangs and Sakura didn't fancy the thought of a constantly sweaty forehead. Tying it around her neck was equally appalling, reminding her too much of a dog on a leash. She was a soldier, not a slave, the difference being that she got paid to do what she did.

Eventually, after trying out various parts of her body to place it on and finding none satisfactory, she settled to place it on top of her head with the knot tied underneath her bun. Gave her at a bit of a housemaid look but she was frustrated enough with the loss of time to overlook that.

Noise from downstairs made her pause for just a second, before she recalculated her schedule so it deviated from her usual routine. Her parents were awake already so she would go without breakfast. At first, she had told herself that she wasn't avoiding them, not on purpose anyway, but she had to admit that with her tattered soul came a certain weariness for people treating her like an eleven-year-old girl. Her parents where at the top of the list of 'people who treated her like a child who hadn't seen and lived through war', she supposed it was a good thing that they still did that, it meant she wasn't behaving too different, too noticeable, but it certainly tired her. Today she just didn't have the patience to deal with them. That it really wasn't that different from how she felt on other days, well… that was inconsequential.

She left the curtains of her own window drawn and made her way to the only guest room their house had to open that window. It was slightly smaller and less comfortable to squeeze through than her own but that wasn't the point. Her room aligned with one of the main roads of Konoha, it had people traversing it at any given time and during the morning rush, it would practically be buzzing with people. Sakura had learned to never practise wall-walking on her side of the house after the first time a woman screeched when she saw an eight-year-old flinging herself out of the window.

Civilians… typical.

The guest room had the worst view, seeing as it was really never used. It looked over a narrow backstreet, the kind that tradespeople used for navigating around the crowds and for stocking some of their wares away from the public eye. Sakura put her head out of the window and looked down the streets for any sights of life. Content with her quick sweep, she crammed her growing body through the window and placed her feat, one by one, on the wall. Once they were securely fastened to the bricks with her chakra she soundlessly closed the window as best as she could, the latch was on the inside and try as she might she couldn't will her arm to pass through the glass to lock it.

Her decent wasn't nearly as smooth as she wanted it to be, not as smooth as Izuna could defy gravity, but in the three years she had been practising she had evolved from awkwardly sliding and falling from the wall, to gracefully stepping down it with a slight falter at the end to let go.

Stepping from behind her house and easily mingling with the rest of the crowd, Sakura began her daily struggle between trying to keep a straight posture with her chin up high and keeping her eyes resolutely on her sandals. Otherwise she would see _it_ , and it more often than not stirred these foreign, aggressive feelings in her.

A few deep breaths were needed to slow down her excited heartbeat. Today was the day she became a ninja, today she would start building her reputation from scratch as she rose through the ranks... again, sort off. If she had pushed she could have graduated well before now but unlike the other impatient children she took the extra years for the gift it was and allowed her body and chakra to grow alongside her skill. It was a luxury that was not always given to ninja children.

She arrived early but less early than usual, which irked her. Somehow, she just knew that having to deviate from her usual time table was a bad sign. Still she calmly sat down at her usual spot in the middle row to the left, purposely picked for being unremarkable. A few recent graduates where already there, some from the other classes.

Overhearing some of her classmates debating their potential placements made her wonder about that as well. If the teachers had any idea of what they were doing they'd put her in an intelligence gathering squad or an espionage based squad, perhaps she'd do well in a tracking squad or scouting team, honestly anything that required to have half a brain would suit her well enough.

Sakura was fairly certain that she had natural born intelligence instead of it being Izuna's past skills that influenced her talents. Izuna had been lucky his brother was, while not exactly more powerful, definitely more flashy and impressive then he himself was. This tented to draw attention away from him, allowing him to live in his brother's shadow and do what he did best, remain inconspicuous and use that against people. Uchiha Madara was also generally considered unpleasant and ruthless making Izuna the more approachable brother with his charming smiles and funny wit. Nobody ever seemed to realise that his elder brother held more compassion in his little finger than Izuna had in his whole body. Behind the brave and honourable warrior exterior was a man would crawl through the darkest of pits, lower himself to do the most disgraceful of things as long as it served his brother.

So, sharing his memories might have taught her more about espionage and stealth than she ought to know but it was her _own_ talent which made her good at it. Not the impossible situation she had been born into and a blazing sun of a brother.

During her musings, the classroom had filled out. While there were enough last years for three classes to exist, the genin trails had narrowed them down to just one full class. One row further down sat the last Uchiha, the insignia on his back made her stomach lurch so she quickly looked away. She was at a loss at what to feel for the Uchiha clan, as in a past life she had lived solely to serve it and that loyalty was still there but here in this life she had discovered they had betrayed her brother which she could not forgive. So, she settled on 'not thinking about it and bottling it up' like a total boy.

When the Uzumaki went and made a spectacle of himself her attention was once again drawn towards the Uchiha's general direction. There was nothing confusing about the blond one, the Uzumaki where allies of the Senju and thus enemies. While she didn't really regard the boy as her enemy since that was in Izuna's time, she still disliked him because of that.

All in all, Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke where the two only people she really didn't want to end up on a team with. Their dynamics translated to instant migraine even without past-life issues.

After the boy's accidental kiss – which was nearly as gross as the thought of an Uchiha kissing a Senju – Iruka-sensei entered the classroom and made short work of ensuring silence and congratulating them on making it this far. He then proceeded with announcing the teams. Sakura perked up whenever a team was called that she could potentially end up in.

"Team seven: Uzumaki Naruto," Sakura immediately recognised the team as a frontal assault squad with just that single name. The boy was more brawn than brain, after all.

"… Haruno Sakura," That couldn't be right.

"And Uchiha Sasuke." Drat!"

Her expression soured and in her mind she muttered obscenities that would have made Iruka-sensei's ears wrinkle if he heard.

This was turning out to be very bad day indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**It's rough and unedited but please do enjoy and leave a review if you do^^**

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The Uzumaki boy had the strangest set of manners she had ever seen. His speech pattern was abysmal and often simply disrespectful, creating the image of an uncultured barbarian. Thus, Sakura was pleasantly surprised when he stood aside for her as they reached the door at the same time.

"Ladies first." He laughed sheepishly while rubbing his neck.

"Thank you." She replied primly.

It was a sad afterthought to realise the Uchiha's manners didn't stretch as far when she saw him push his way past his classmates to leave the academy. With a shake of her head she was preparing for a trip to the library to read up on standard genin drills but her teammate's voice stopped her.

"Uh, Sakura-chan, I was thinking, since we're going to be on a team together and all, maybe you and I could have lunch, uh, together." The boy fidgeted awkwardly while giving her a painfully wide smile.

Sakura supressed her sigh, she'd already done it once and she wasn't planning on continuing the trend. There was no point in being a child about it, this was the team she had been given and she would learn to live with it, like it or not. Though what kind of meds you had to be on to put her in a frontal assault squad, she had no idea. But she would deal with it, and adapt.

If her polite voice sounded a little forced because she had ended up with a past enemy and questionable legacy as squad members then surely, she couldn't be blamed. "Sure, it might be a good idea to familiarise ourselves with each other's skills. But please, Sakura-san will do."

The blond seemed happily surprised when she consented to lunch, though his expression fell when she told him to address her more respectfully. She wasn't about let up on that, she hardly spoke two words with him in all of the four years they had classes together, if they weren't ninja they wouldn't even be on first name basis. But as it stood ninja didn't use each other's last name, especially not outside of their village. Names held power and connection but if it was recognised by the wrong person you might end up dead.

The Uzumaki led her to a small but well-kept ramen stand, chatting merrily all the way there and – to Sakura's abhorrence – all throughout his lunch as well. It was hard to get two words in about possible strategizing let alone simply reconciling with each other's skills. He also used the opportunity to pronounce her name as often as possible, as if that would make her reconsider.

"So, Sakura-san how was your ramen?" He finally inquired. She had come to believe he had forgotten she was there where it not for the periodical mention of her name.

"It was good Naruto-san. It would have been better if you hadn't talked your way through the demolishment of your food that you persist to call 'eating'." It was a slight quip said with a light tone, dancing the fine edge between a friendly joke and straight mockery.

He took it in stride with a loud chuckle and the order of a second bowl. "Well, Sakura-san, it ain't every day that I get to enjoy the food of the gods, especially with company."

She figured he would handle it good-naturedly but it was still nice to have her speculations confirmed. Her brow rose. "Food of the gods?"

Later, she would learn to never ever question ramen nearby the Uzumaki ever again. His monologue about ramen lasted them throughout their free afternoon. She never did get to talk business but he did pay for her bowl, again a weird display of manners that he otherwise seemed to lack, especially considering he was on an orphan stipend and likely couldn't afford to treat people often.

"Ugh, he's late." The blond moaned for the umpteenth time.

Their jounin instructor was indeed late and not a mere ten minutes late, a full hour late. And while the blond boy whined and groaned, Sakura stayed rigid in her seat. She couldn't help but feel there was a reason for his tardiness. If she where to gain a team of young inexperienced shinobi under her command, the first thing she would do was to see what exactly she had been tasked with.

At once a dozen dream memories came to mind as she waited for her instructor. How many times had Izuna had to wait on a scout to report back, how often did those scouts not make it back on time, or back at all. More scenario's came to mind, waiting on the enemy to run by for an ambush, waiting for the signal to launch an attack, waiting for their suppliers to bring food and other necessities to the warfront,… Shinobi life was one big waiting game.

This might very well be a way to throw them off balance, to see how well they responded on the waiting. One could not exactly throw a fit when you had to man a post for hours on end in enemy territory.

And so, Sakura stayed still as a statue while even the Uchiha shifted on his seat in impatience a couple of times. It was another hour before the door creaked open. Naruto smiled in anticipation as the eraser he had planted between it and the frame came loose. Laughter rang through the room as it hit the man's head and bounced off on the floor.

Sakura felt her eyebrow rise at the same time Sasuke's shoulders hunched. Did those two actually believe the jounin fell for that? Nobody put their head through a door first, it was all for show. It worked though, two thirds of his genin team underestimated him now. Well played.

The question was why? What was he up to?

He emerged fully into the classroom, wearing a Konoha standard uniform with nothing on him to personify it. Sakura immediately took a liking to his style, it was exactly how she imagined wearing it herself, safe from the slanted headband. The extravagant, gravity-defying haircut was rather notable though… then again, her hair was pink so she had jack squat to say.

"My first impression of you guys, you're a bunch of idiots." The man said offhandedly. "Follow me to the roof." Then he disappeared with a well-executed shunshin.

Sakura's joints popped when she moved for the first time in two hours. Uchiha rose from his place with a scowl while Naruto – who had been closest to the door – ran after their sensei while yelling profanities at him.

The jounin's actions had her on guard and more than a bit frazzled so when Sasuke sped up to push his way past her, her reaction was immediate. The kunai she had pulled was buried into the wooden doorframe up to its hilt, a mere inch removed from his face. Her arm grazed his nose when she pulled it back, effectively calling his attention on her instead of the weapon she had thrust at him.

He stared at her as if he'd never seen her before which was likely true, Sakura disliked calling attention herself. Of the twenty-seven graduates she had ranked eleventh with her genin exams, exactly where she had wanted to be. High enough to have potential but not high enough to appear on the radar of people like Uchiha Sasuke.

"Show some of that ancient clan decency and step aside, Uchiha." Other words where burning on her tongue, nastier words, those that would sting more but Sakura bit them back as she reasoned she still needed to get along with him on their missions. What she wanted to say would surely blow her shot at even a reluctant comradery though that didn't make it any less tempting, just foolish.

His eyes hardened and narrowed at her. "You don't know the first thing about clans."

She knew their orphan teammate had more manners than him which was frankly, just disappointing. Her voice became a whisper, no less hard in tone than before. "You have no idea." She crammed herself through the small gap between the Uchiha and the door, effectively ending the conversation. A burst of agitated but harmless chakra escaped him and this close to Sakura's senses she felt the sheer familiarity in it. Her stomach clenched so abruptly she nearly bent double.

As her mind worked itself into a frenzy going ' _brother, brother, brother, brother',_ something stirred at the back of her head. Before her eyes, the world suddenly gained a second layer of colours and for a moment a vaguely feminine shape stood it the hallway. It was saying something but it all sounded blurred to her though there was no mistaking the strong sense of sorrow that surrounded it.

Instinctively, Sakura broke out into a run trying to push back the… _thing_ in her head. A breath of relief escaped her when the world returned to normal. This was the third time it happened to her, and each time was stronger than the last.

Her hand sought the bannister to steady herself. She decided to jog up the stairs despite the weariness it cost. The faster she could get this day over with, the better.

The Uzumaki was just setting himself down on the ground when she arrived and patted the spot next to her. "What took you guys so long?" She just sent him a disapproving look, they couldn't have been more than half a minute behind him, and refused to glance over her shoulder to see if Sasuke had indeed arrived as well. She also stubbornly didn't acknowledge what just happened.

They both sat down on either side of Naruto when the jounin cleared his voice.

"Now that we're all here, why don't you start with introducing yourselves." The white-haired man sounded as if he couldn't care less about who they were.

The Uchiha tsk'ed and looked away.

"Introductions?" Naruto asked. "Like, what should we say?"

"Oh, you know," he waved his hand at them, "Your likes and dislikes, your dreams for the future, your hobbies, stuff like that."

"Why don't you show us how it's done? We don't know you, after all." Sakura inquired with interest. The man hadn't even given them his name yet.

There was no way of knowing whether he was actually surprised by her question as his mask and headband hid most of his face but he did sound like it.

"Who, me? I'm Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes… hm, I don't feel like telling you that. Dreams for the future… never really thought about it as for my hobbies… I have lots of hobbies.

So only his name huh? Her blond teammate decided to voice his thoughts. "Wait a minute, all you really told us was your name!"

"It's your turn now." Kakashi said dully. The prospect of having to introduce himself, effectively shut the loud mouth up for a second or two before he launched into it with the excessive use of the word 'ramen'.

Sakura felt her eye twitch, she had heard that word too many times already.

There was a calculating look in Hatake's eyes as Naruto explained his dreams for the future. "Alright, next." He nodded towards Sasuke who launched into an utmost dark and gloomy summary of himself. His dream was as predictable as they came.

"Hm, next." His single eye focused on her and Sakura blanched. The jounin hadn't given then any information about himself, should she? Lying about herself was probably not the best way to go but she wasn't sure if honesty was such a stellar option either.

"I, uh, I like discipline." That was entirely too much personal information. The silver haired joinin raised his eyebrow.

"I dislike having to hurry." There, a lot of people disliked that so it told them little about her. "I write, sometimes. And I would like to become the best I can be." Vague common information, exactly as it should be.

Kakashi blinked once. "Right… Tomorrow we will start wi-"

"Oh, oh, will we defend the daimyo?! Will we battle samurai?! Come on sensei, I'm ready, tell us what we'll do!" Naruto was bouncing in his seat.

"-th survival training."

"WHAT? Survival training, why?!" The blond looked downright horrified.

"Hn, idiot." Sasuke mumbled.

Before the two could launch into an argument their sensei – whom already seemed to have figured out those two's dynamic – interrupted them.

"I could tell you why, but you're not going to like it." He taunted

"Why wouldn't we." Sasuke said sharply.

"Of the twenty-seven graduates only nine will be allowed to become genin, the rest of you will be sent back to the academy. This survival exercise I have in store for you has a 66% fail rate."

Sakura couldn't keep the surprise off her face. Sure, she had expected him to measure their skill level at some point but in the form of another graduation test, well she hadn't seen it coming. No matter she wouldn't fail, she might have scored 11th place in their class but she could have gone higher had she wanted to.

Naruto's protest fell on deaf ears.

"We'll start tomorrow morning at eight on the third training ground. Don't be late. Oh, and don't eat breakfast unless you enjoy throwing up. Dismissed." Instead of shooing them away he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Naruto was so caught up on his own thoughts he headed home without a goodbye to his teammates and as the other two were through mutual silent consent not on speaking terms, Sakura got a peaceful leave from her team.

On the way home, she made a detour to the standard shinobi shop so she could prepare for tomorrow morning.

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'Izuna put his head between his knees, trying to smother the sound of the rain. He hated the rain, it brought with it the worst kind of memories. The door creaked slightly but he still heard it meaning his efforts to deafen himself were in vain. He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to stop the tears from falling, father always told him shinobi didn't cry.

"Izuna?" A familiar warm voice called. At the sound of it, he lost all composure.

"Aniki!" He sobbed, darting across his room on his short legs into his brother's arms.

"Shhh, otouto, you're going to wake father." In one hand he held a candle while he smoothed Izuna's hair with the other. Izuna nodded against his chest before pulling back and rubbing his eyes. Madara said nothing about the tears, he never did.

"Come on, go back to bed, I'll tuck you in."

They walked toward his bed together and as Izuna crawled in Madara put the candle on his nightstand and sat down next to the younger boy. From his obi he pulled a thin, worn book. "I brought your favourite story." He whispered.

Izuna allowed himself a shaky smile for his brother's sake while gluing himself to the older brother's side.

Sitting next to Aniki while he read to him with soft words in the glow of a single candle was the kind of memory Izuna would never allow himself to forget.'

Sakura woke with a gasp. It took her a moment to realise her dream had been rather peaceful and wasn't the cause of her discomfort. When she noticed the second layer of colour over the world she panicked and fell out of bed with a loud thump. Her stomach turned violently and white-hot pain shot through her head.

 _p-ple-ase_ … _pl-eaaase…_

A voice cut through her thoughts, warped and muddled. Her eyes where cast to the floor but she dared bet that if she looked up the shape would be there. She fought to push her herself up, the pain inside her skull becoming worse. Blood dribbled down her nose onto the floor.

 _Pl-leassse!_

The voice was all but screaming now. "Go away!" Sakura ground out, the effort causing black spots to appear on her vision. Her hands gave beneath her and a woman's voice was the last thing that rang through her head as she blacked out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Phew, again** **rough** **and unedited but I thought I wasn't going to make this weeks update... it's very late for me now so... I'm off to sleep.**

 **Thank you for anyone who review! They where most inspiring.**

 **Please leave reviews, they keep me motivated!**

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When Sakura came to, there was no second layer of colour to be seen instead the whole world looked slightly more blue-tinged then it should be. Anxious, she started looking around for the figure she saw before, instead she found herself lying on the floor.

She stared at herself for almost a whole minute before a coherent thought formed itself. _This isn't good._ Last time she checked, an 'out of body' experience only happened to people who were nearly dying.

 _Parents._ She felt their presence before they rushed into her room, and it wasn't their chakra she sensed. They had an eerie blue-green sheen surrounding them, her mother's glow was stronger than her father's another hint that it wasn't chakra. Her father had the bigger chakra reservoir.

"Sakura, oh god! Sakura!" Her mother's voice sounded muffled to her ears but the panic in it was obvious. She floated closer to them, wondering if there was some way to talk to them.

"Mother." She tried but Sakura herself couldn't even hear it. Trying to stay calm and rational, she kneeled towards her body. It was the place she needed to be in after all. Her arm, more like a glowing appendage then an actual flesh and blood limb, stretched towards her body. The moment she made contact it jerked awake and cold, blood-red eyes shot towards her. Her world spun and she screamed like she never had before because for a moment, just a split second she had seen Izuna's sharingan eyes staring back at her.

"Shhh, Sakura, it's all right." Her mother's soft arms embraced her strongly despite the quiver in her voice. It was then that Sakura realised she was still screaming and managed to bring it down to a low terrified whimper. "My e-eyes…"

Mebuki pulled back from her daughter to hold her face. "What's wrong with your eyes, dear."

As Sakura held her gaze she waited for a reaction, anything that indicated her eyes were still a vivid red in colour but when no such reaction came she forced herself to calm down. It had been her imagination, nothing more. Her mother tried to pull her into another hug but she deflected the move of affection by putting her hands between them, pretending to inspect the blood on them. They had never been reassuring for her, she had never really grown that kind of bond with them. It was up to her to comfort herself.

"Here pumpkin. You're bleeding." Her father, Kizashi pressed a paper tissue to her nose. Absentmindedly, she took it from his hand while trying to find a reasonable excuse for this mess.

"Headache." She mumbled. "I had a really strong headache." It was a weak explanation but it was all she could manage at that moment.

"Oh dear, a headache that severe, we've got to have that checked." Mebuki said, making Sakura tense. Suddenly the survival exercise came to mind.

"I can't, not right now. We have our first team… ehm, meeting." If she told them they'd have to do another genin test, they'd never let her go. "How late is it?"

"Sakura, you can't go. Your health comes first, we're taking you to the hospital and your sensei better understand." Kizashi grumbled.

Frowning, a hysterical anger bubbled inside her bred by the stress of her morning but she forced herself to remain calm. As long as she played them right her parents would give her anything she wanted.

"But dad, it's just introducing ourselves and you know how much I hate missing these kinds of things. I'll have my teammates looking out for me and I'll head for the hospital straight after, please." At the sight of her pleading face, Kizashi faltered but by the set of his jaw she knew he would resist even before he actually did it.

"Sakura-" He began

"Skipping this will only give me more stress." It was a crippling blow and she saw her father struggling with his decision. When he couldn't decide he did what he always did, turn to his wife.

That was a small setback, her mother was always harder to convince than her father.

"Dear, for our peace of mind-"

"I'll head to the hospital straight after and call you at your work to let you know I'm okay." It was better not to allow her mother to work out her arguments they tended to be rather solid. "I would make a bad first impression if I didn't show up today and it's not like we'll be doing anything strenuous. You know me, you know I'm responsible."

When the eyes of Mebuki veered slightly to the left, Sakura just knew she was recalling the whole 'throwing herself out of the window, incident'. Nosy civilians…

"Alright Sakura, but you better live up to those promises." Mebuki sighed, her apple green eyes closing in defeat as she rose to stand up again.

"Of course." She would never, willingly set foot into the hospital in fear of being discovered for the freak she was. Instead she'd be doing an intensive search of the library for something doctor-ish sounding to explain her 'episode' with. Perhaps even forge some papers as proof she'd been there.

But for now, she would worry about her genin trails. Good that she was an early riser. When her parents left the room, Sakura noticed she could still feel their 'presence' like she had before only she couldn't see the blue-green aura anymore. Another thing to look into later, she couldn't afford to dilly dally. With a rock solid determination, she rose on trembling legs and fought to keep her exhaustion at bay. She would make it, she would become genin, today.

Sakura arrived just a little before eight, surprised – albeit pleasantly – to find her teammates already there. It had occurred to her that Naruto might not be that concerned with arriving on time seeing as he disregarded so many other rules and Sasuke had it in him to make their jounin sensei wait because they'd been made to wait the day before, an eye-for-an-eye sort of mentality. Sometimes it was nice to be wrong too.

She nodded at both her teammates in greeting and got a stiff, reluctant nod from Sasuke and a cheery wave accompanied with a tremendous yawn that vaguely resembled her name from Naruto.

Then the waiting game began. By now Sakura was convinced Kakashi did it to unsettle them. One was simply not as alert after a few hours of waiting then at the moment something was planned. It worked too, Naruto fell asleep and Sasuke started brooding and glaring while leaning against a tree. Sakura stood tall at where she first decided to wait, her eyes closed and her senses loosely active. It wouldn't do to stay on high alert for hours this time, it would tire her out before they even started. Still she tensed every time a sound would disturb the rhythm of the training field and she felt around her for a wisp of chakra.

Neither of those things alerted her of the jounin's presence, he was simply too skilled for that but surprisingly her new sensing ability did. With her eyes closed, she could almost see the blue-green glow approaching them. In her ear, she heard a whisper that sounded too much like a plea. Quickly she wedged her eyes open and welcomed Naruto's loud and accusing voice.

"You're late! Three hours late!"

"Mah, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way here." A sheepish look crossed the man's visible eye.

"LIES!" The orange clad ninja howled.

"Quiet down so I can explain the assignment." While speaking he pulled out an old alarm clock from his pack. "The alarm will go off at noon, you have until then to steal these from me." Two bells were revealed from his pockets.

Sakura resisted the urge to lift her hand. "Do you mean the three of us need to steal it together or…"

He chuckled. "You each need one bell to pass. Those who don't will end up tied to a post and will have to go without lunch. Those students will ultimately fail."

"But… there are only two bells." Naruto said a little lost.

"That means at least one of you will fail." His relentless cheer grated on Sakura's nerves. "You may use any weapons at your disposal, aim to kill or you won't stand a chance." She didn't doubt that for one second.

A loud laugh pierced through air. "You couldn't even dodge that eraser! You'll only get yourself killed!" Naruto crossed his arms behind his neck.

Sakura watched Naruto make a scene of himself when their sensei said something he didn't like. When he ended up with his own kunai almost in the back of his neck, Sakura was not surprised. She knew he was powerful from the beginning but then… having to fight him to pass just didn't make sense. How could any genin ever pass like that?

She missed a part of her team's conversation but when the jounin gave them the go, she wasted no time.

He didn't immediately go after any of them, her newfound sensory skill told her that. This have her hope that the objective wasn't actually to defeat him. Maybe if they showed enough skill he would let them have a bell. With that in mind, Sakura set to work.

He was taller than her, heavier than her and simply more muscular then her. Hand to hand combat was ill advised on her part, still she believed there was a way to use those traits against her. Her knack for precision would help her with that.

While sensing Kakashi's and Naruto's, uh, presence in the clearing she regretted being unable to split herself in two. She could have watched that fight to get an idea of his preferred fighting style and any potential weaknesses. Though he was probably so far above her in skill she wouldn't be able to exploit them anyway.

In the back of her mind she felt Naruto and their sensei clash a couple of times. Sasuke was nearby, probably observing them. Then Naruto suddenly stayed in one spot and Sasuke started moving away from the clearing. Instead of chasing after him, like Sakura had come to expect, Kakashi headed straight for her.

Despite trying to leave no traces of her passing and changing directions a couple of times before settling on a hiding spot, Kakashi didn't hesitate once. He knew exactly where she was.

When he was nearly close enough to become visible within the cluster of trees Sakura had chosen, she turned around with a kunai in hand. She wasn't even fully turned before a genjutsu hit her, a powerful genjutsu. Gritting her teeth, she gathered as much chakra as she could and twisted it around in her body in an erethic pattern, the illusion faded before it even fully formed.

Kakashi stood a few feet away from her on a branch at equal height as her own, surprise was visible in his single eye. Sakura's mind worked over time as she tried to figure out the purpose of that genjutsu. There was no way any other genin could have broken that genjutsu, it was just though luck that she was hypersensitive to it but he couldn't have known that. But why throw a genjutsu at her that he didn't think she could overcome? It would have been game over for her and he could have examined her skills any further.

Her eyes narrowed in a glare as she came to the only logical conclusion. He had never expected that she'd break out of it, he had read from her file that she wasn't a combat type and thus not worth his time. The illusion was so he could be done with her and focus on the other two. Well he had another thing coming for him.

While Sakura preferred to keep a few aces up her sleeve, this was too important to downplay herself. Never had she wanted anything more than to pass this test, even if she'd already been written off. Her hands came together to form three hand signs as she threw her own genjutsu at him. It was a simple one, the first one Izuna had ever learned and the only one she'd been able to master yet.

He broke it in less than a second but that wasn't the point, it was a display of skill. Fresh academy genin weren't taught any genjutsu after all.

"Interesting, here I thought I was going to teach you the second shinobi discipline but it seems you already know genjutsu." His fake cheery tone was starting to become eerie.

If she narrowed her eyes any further she would be limiting her vision. "I know a lot more than that." She took a step back and sprung one of her traps.

In the split second it took to detonate her trap she watched the jounin calculate where the trap would likely spring from. By logic it could be from anyplace with enough leaves to hide to trap, anyplace except where the creator was standing, he came to that conclusion as well and made to rush for her.

 _Wrong._

A dozen kunai flew just over her head and towards his upper torso, using her inferior height to her advantage. He immediately changed his direction and as dropping himself took less time and effort than jumping up, he chose a branch below him.

It broke when his weight landed on it but he managed to attach himself to the trunk after skidding down a few inches. The branch itself landed in a web of iron wire and Sakura made herself scarce when it detonated a few low-level explosive tags.

She had partially sawn a bunch of lower branches, being precise enough so that it would carry her light body but not that of a full-grown, well-build man. So when the jounin tried to follow her, assuming that the branches she picked were the right branches, they broke once more.

It was then when she decided to change directions, planning to attack him when he was off balance. She wasn't that good at hand to hand combat so she had to choose her moves wisely. Pushing of with enough force to break the sabotaged branch she was on, she veered towards him. She flew past his left and her hands grazed the bells before he grabbed her arm and threw her away from him mid-air. He attached himself to the trunk of a tree once more and Sakura did the same except with some fumbling before she steadied herself.

For a brief moment she allowed herself to feel jealous of his smooth chakra attachment. Her breaths came out in shallow gasps as they stared each other down.

Then he cocked his head. "Not bad." His fisted hand drew closer to his body. "But I'm better." Iron wire tightened around her, pulling her taut against the tree. She cursed but didn't struggle, Sakura knew when she lost.

He set up a trap around her, likely revenge for her own traps. "I'm afraid I have another student to attend to but why don't you, heh, _hang_ around for a while." With a wave of his hand he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"Curse you!" She shouted. Then she calmed herself and tried to figure out how to escape her predicament.

Meanwhile Kakashi tracked down his last student with the previous one still fresh in his mind. This wasn't some overzealous kid who thought they could do anything as long as they tried hard enough. This was someone who knew their own weaknesses and had learned to plan around them. She had faced him with a cool rationality more commonly seen among shuunin or higher levelled ninja than genin. But perhaps more disturbing than that, she had scaled a tree with chakra and utilised genjutsu, neither of which skills were taught at the academy and they weren't recorded in her file either.

It was strange… he needed to look into it. If she had an unregistered teacher and they were telling her to keep these skills to herself that could spell trouble. He could name a few individuals whom he didn't trust to teach anyone without ulterior motives.

But first, time to torment Sasuke.

A lot of effort and a kunai to her arm later and she was free. Too bad that after she bandaged the shallow wound, the alarm went off.

Sakura did her walk of shame towards the posts, where Naruto was tied up to one and Sasuke looked particularly displeased while covered in dirt.

"None of you have what it takes to become ninja." Kakashi started. "You have made complete fools out of yourselves and have ridiculed the shinobi name with your behaviour."

Silence descended among team seven. "I don't think that's fair. We all gave it our best shot." Sakura tried to say calmly but the tremor in her voice was audible.

"You all rushed into the exercise without taking a moment to consider what I was asking of you. All three of you completely missed the point of this exercise."

"Well… what was it?" Naruto said surprisingly demure.

"Think about it why have you been divided into squads of three?" He said impatiently.

It clicked then. "Teamwork…" Sakura sighed.

"Yes, teamwork." He turned around and walked towards the memorial, explaining its purpose and telling them all his friends were on it. It was the first thing he told them about himself and Sakura felt as if it was important.

"I will all give you one last chance. Sasuke, Sakura, eat your lunch. Naruto will get none seeing as he tried to steal some before the time was up. Don't feed him or you fail." He disappeared in what was becoming his usual fashion.

For a moment nobody moved. Then Naruto's stomach growled and both free teenagers grabbed a lunchbox. Sakura sensed Kakashi a bit further back by some trees, probably preparing the battlefield.

"Hey listen up, Naruto needs to eat if we want the team to be at full strength." Sakura said.

"We'll fail." Sasuke countered dryly.

"Yeah guys, don't fail because of me." The blond said miserably.

"He's not here right now, I can sense it." Sakura claimed. "Besides, unlike you guys, I've had breakfast." Even a half-digested breakfast was better than none at all, in case she did puke.

"He's on our right. Sasuke, cover us. I'll give Naruto my lunch. If he comes by, we'll claim we were just strategizing against him."

For a moment he looked dubious before doing as she asked. Sakura broke her chopsticks and fed Naruto a bite of rice. She turned to Sasuke to tell him to eat too but instead she came face to face with Kakashi. "What are we doing here?" He asked gleefully.

"Being a team!" Naruto shouted, trashing against the ropes that bound him.

"Oh, is that so?"

All three of them nodded in tandem.

"Well then… you pass."

A baffled silence filled the clearing.

"From now on you are team seven. We're going to have ever so much fun together." He said, his eye smiling at them.

A feeling crept up on Sakura, one that told her she had no idea what she just signed up for.


	4. Chapter 4

**Here you go guys! Sorry for the delay.**

 **Please leave a review! I love them and they inspire me!**

 **XXXXXX**

It would have been nice of her academy teachers to explain that the term 'jounin instructor' was a euphemism for the devil's incarnate. A few weeks had passed since team seven was formed and he was still throwing them off-balance at every turn. Creeping up on them during private conversations, purposely choosing the D-ranks they showed the most disdain for and standing them up all the time were a couple of the irritating things he did. Taunting his team was his hobby.

The worst part was that he barely taught them anything. Team practise was six days a week from eight to twelve. That meant around four hours a day but you were lucky if he showed up for just one. One hour divided among three students with vastly different focus points. Needless to say he didn't bother, instead he made them practise team formations… which was useful… to train once a week. Occasionally he made them spar him but Sakura didn't quite get what they could learn from getting tied upside down to a tree, _every_ time.

"Can anyone move their hands?" Sasuke gritted through his teeth.

"Negative." Naruto answered.

Wiggling her fingers to see how much moving space she had, Sakura assessed she might reach her pack. "A little, maybe I can grab a kunai."

"Sakura-san, can you still sense him around?" Sasuke asked seriously. Since Naruto consistently addressed her with the respectful -san, Sasuke picked up on it too. Not for the right reasons but because he didn't want to seem more familiar with her than the other teammate. The boys still used childish mock names for each other.

"No, he's gone." She confirmed. After a while her team had realised she stood at attention whenever their sensei neared, even if he wasn't visible yet. They called it her sensei-sensor and were more than happy to make full use of it.

It was fortunate both boys still chronically underestimated Kakashi-sensei otherwise they would have realised there should be no way for her to sense the jounin. And that would have let to questions she wasn't willing to answer.

Her hand reached her pack and it took her a fair bit of squirming and fumbling to grab a kunai. The first one fell to the ground with a soft thud but she managed to hold on to the second one.

"Almost there." She grunted all the while sawing into the sturdy rope. With a dramatic snap, the rope gave and released team seven. Sakura and Sasuke managed to right themselves during the fall, landing gracefully on their feet. Naruto fell flat onto his back and sputtered for air.

"Damn it, he does this every time!" Naruto gasped, still winded.

Sasuke frowned, annoyance clear on his face. "Hn." Despite the short response, Sakura heard the agreement in it and wondered how bad things must be before the Uchiha actually agreed with something Naruto said.

She had to admit, even she was at the end of her patience but she wasn't about to waste time whining about it. Saluting her team with one hand, she walked off.

"See you tomorrow, Naruto-san, Sasuke-san."

She received two replies, one clipped and the other loud but both with a measure of irritation in their voices. The kind that wasn't directed at her. Even so, team seven was far from a functional squad, none of them was on good terms with the others. Naruto still made half-hearted attempts at conversation with her but even a blind person could see he was uncomfortable with her attitude. Sakura couldn't say she suffered a loss on that one.

Making her way across the same route she used every day she felt a familiar presence join the buzz of lively midday shoppers. He was tailing her again, their sensei had been doing it ever since their genin test. Something she had done back then had warranted her sensei's suspicion so she found herself being watched more often than not.

Taking a deep breath she ignored it and trudged on to her house. She felt oddly calm about being followed by her jounin instructor, especially considering she had more to hide than most. But her secrets were inside her head, not on coded notes she passed along to Konoha's enemies or something similar. There was no complot nor betrayal just a hint of madness hidden in her soul.

When she reached her house his presence left, it always did when she was stationary, but she figured he must have some way of knowing when she decided to move because he always returned when she did.

With her new strange sensory skill, she knew her parents weren't home, which was a relief. After her 'episode' things had been strained between them, well… more strained than usual. Despite – might she add – expertly forged medical bills and fake prescriptions. Her mother wanted to dote on her and openly worry for her while Sakura would rather eat her own left foot than let her. On top of that her father grew more dissatisfied with her distant behaviour. Sakura didn't understand why, she'd always been like that.

For once, she didn't have to tip-toe her way up the stairs. She was always quiet but it was more relaxed without having to worry about getting found out.

Her room was messy for her standards with books and notes scattered around. The state of her desk was the cause of Kakashi's way of – or lack of – teaching. By this time she had believed she would have been advancing steadily under the command of an elite shinobi. Her skill pool should have widened and her basics should have been polished to perfection but none of that had happened. So she took matters in her own hands.

Izuna's dream memories were scanned for any useful information. Unfortunately a photographic memory was near useless in ones dreams. Half of the details were already forgotten in the second it took to open her eyes. That, and most of Izuna's repertoire was chakra extensive or bloodline limit related. There were other things she could learn from him though, aside from jutsu.

With her parents gone, she didn't fear doing some of the noisier exercises indoors. She went to the bathroom and filled the tub halfway with lukewarm water. The theory behind water walking wasn't that much different than tree walking. They both focused on altering your chakra so that its level of adhesion became high enough to make a person stick. But in practise it was much more complex. Water remained a liquid – as opposed to a tree – it was constantly moving with no fixed shape. If you went to stand on it, it would move making it difficult to connect with it and create and an adhesive layer strong enough to carry you. On the other hand, you didn't have to struggle against gravity.

Carefully, she slipped one leg into the tub and placed the bottom of her foot against the water. It rippled underneath her touch right away, making Sakura scrunch her brow. Concentrating hard, she filtered chakra through the soles of her feet, trying to alter its flow with every ripple. When she felt like she had a solid layer separating her from the water she gripped the edge of the tub and lifted the other foot. Before she could even add the second limb her grip faltered, making her sink. Instinctively she added more chakra, too much for the water to handle. It exploded around. Sakura fell over with flailing arms, her back hit the edge of the tub and she flipped backwards to the ground. Her head bounced off the floor with a loud smack, leaving black dots all across her vision.

"Ooow." That was going to leave a nasty bruise. Picking herself up, she grumbled at the inconvenience of using the bathtub. But ever since Kakashi started tailing her, she had been reluctant to train herself outside were he would follow.

She steeled herself to try again, reciting the theory to remind her it could be done. Water was nearly incompressible, making it possible to walk upon unlike air. After an hour she could shakily stand as long as she relieved the water of half of her weight by pushing herself up on the edge of the tub. It was far from a satisfactory result but her parents would be home soon and the floor had to be mopped before that.

The bathroom was mostly dry by the time the front door opened and Sakura hastily retreated to her room to work on some of the quieter stuff. Genjutsu theory was challenging but Sakura enjoyed it immensely. In silence she worked her way through the thick tomes she had borrowed from the library, occasionally jotting down ideas and calculations of her own.

'The minutes ticked by on the clock Izuna was watching. It was well past dinner time but he hadn't gotten any food. Nobody would talk to him, they acted like he couldn't understand them. And maybe he really couldn't.

He'd seen them drag the bodies through the gate but that wasn't unusual, people were often brought back that way. What was strange, and scary, was that he heard his mother scream. A bloodcurdling, agonizing scream that filled Izuna with anxiety. She sounded hurt, why was mama hurt?

The door creaked open and his father marched into the room, a guarded look in his eyes. Izuna immediately jumped from the couch and opened his mouth with a hundred questions on his tongue but his father's voice rang harsh into the air.

"Don't speak." It was short but powerful.

He stilled, afraid of that tone. A couple of long strides brought his sire right in front of him and the young child hesitantly looked up. What he saw wasn't what he expected. Instead of disapproval he found a deep, desperate pleading in his father's eyes and sorrow, nothing but sorrow.

Izuna lifted his chubby arms up to the man, a gesture usually reserved for his mother but he understood and bend to pick the boy up. While Izuna embraced his father's neck, the elder carried him out of the room.

"Mama?" He inquired.

His father's tone was gentler this time but strained. "Don't speak, Izuna please."

He nodded into his father's shirt, staying quiet and listening to his father's heartbeat. When they neared his parents' bedroom he heard the sobbing and it instantly scared him. The arms of his father tensed around him as he pushed open the door.

Izuna didn't dare look but his father pulled him off of him and lowered him carefully into his mother's lap. She immediately pulled him close to her and he heard her crying. "My baby, my baby." While rocking herself gently. Instinctively he knew he had been brought here to comfort her and so curled up against her belly and kept quiet like his father had asked.

He glanced at the man and saw him standing next to the bed, looking right ahead of him. His posture was straight and rigid like an unwavering sentinel, one who lived to protect his family.

Yes, Izuna thought, his father was a sentinel who would always fail.'

Sakura awoke with a chill in her bones that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. Her senses slowly returned to her and before she could think of writing her dream down she was startled by a presence in her room. It was _her_. The woman whose voice she'd heard before, the presence unaccompanied by a body. It lingered in a corner of her room, near the window.

Sakura took a deep breath to calm herself. The only flaw in her unique sensing ability was that there were sometimes presences without a body and while she would be more inclined to believe these were camouflaged shinobi, her experiences with the woman told her otherwise. No, despite how crazy it sounded, Sakura believed these were lingering ghosts, souls who hadn't passed on yet. She was sensing people their spiritual presence instead of their chakra. Accepting this was accepting there was a ghost in her room and it was trying to tell her things, but ever since Sakura started sensing she couldn't hear the woman anymore. She wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Skipping her morning writing, Sakura went through her routine with haste, doing her best to ignore the dead spirit in her bedroom. She grabbed one of her borrowed books as an afterthought and opted on using the door as it was early enough to use it undeterred.

Kakashi felt… strangely cheated. His genin team had played him. They had acted like a functional team for the full two minutes it took him to pass them. After that, any team spirit was hard to find. Still… he liked his little bratlings. They were chosen to be a fresh frontal combat team but each and every one of them was so much _more_ than that. None of them had to potential to be mindless dogs who you could point to a target and they'd charge it. No his team was not a group of dogs, they were a pack of cunning wolfs.

Naruto was devious and could think of excellent traps if he was motivated to do so but it went beyond physical traps. Kakashi wasn't sure the boy was aware of it but once people could look beyond the fox ting Naruto had to ability to ensnare them and make them see his way.

Sakura knew how to play her battlefield and opponent so well. She could use the slightest little detail to her advantage, strategize on the spot and above all, she could think for herself. He saw her weight every one of his words for their value and she decided whether they were right or not. She didn't take his words for the truth simply because he was an adult or an experienced shinobi.

Sasuke, Sasuke was curious but too proud to show it. He was independent and stubborn, something which Kakashi would call a wrong combination but the boy made it work. The boy had stealth and finesse and knew his way around tools like no one else. His clan birthing gave him an advantage of political knowledge over his teammates.

All in all, Kakashi sometimes felt he was looking at the best young spy team that Konoha had birthed in a long time. But Sakura still concerned him, even though he hadn't seen her meet anybody off in weeks and it made him reluctant to train his team until he knew more. If Sakura was being influenced by the wrong people, it would be better to keep her as less of a threat as possible until he could… neutralise it.

No matter he had patients, he just had a feeling his team didn't.

"AAARRGG! He's late again!" An hour into their daily wait and Naruto was already losing it.

Sakura was engrossed in her genjutsu study and so didn't mind it half as much as she usually did. "Hm, if it bothers you so much then do something about it." She said absentmindedly.

The blond crossed his arms. "Well, somebody should. The other teams will be miles ahead of us by now."

Sasuke frowned darkly, not liking the idea one bit.

Sakura had been fearing the same thing so she actually looked up from her book the join the conversation fully. "It's like we're not worth his time." She voiced.

"We should prove him wrong." Naruto said.

"And how do you plan to do that, dunce." Sasuke mocked.

For once Naruto did the mature thing and ignored it. A fiendish look crossed his face. "I got an idea but I need to know if you guys are with me."

 **XXXXXX**

 **Some answers for previous reviews**

 **1\. I wish to thank all of those who reviewed. A simple 'I like it' is more than enough to make me happy**

 **Syp: I know I'm not very good at working out any character except the main character but I am trying. Thank you I'm glad you like it!**

 **Marquise de nile: Shadow clones are pretty useful and seeing as Naruto is their weakest link it will be an opining easy to exploit, no need to make it worse by letting him go hungry. Also you hit the nail right on the head with that soul thing haha. thank you!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I believe I own you all an apology. Though I have good reasons to disappear like I did, none with which shall bore you. Anyway, if anybody knows a good, cost-less replacement for office word, please share with me.**

 **In other words: I'm sorry!**

XXXXXX

Naruto's plan was the right amount of simplistic and risky to work. It was less of a prank and more of a statement and despite it going against all Konoha's code of conduct, Sakura felt a sliver of excitement when they huddled together inside Naruto's apartment. Izuna had always had a taste for mischief and she felt it was rubbing off on her.

There was only one tiny problem. "As you are, neither of you can pull it off." She said matter-of-factly.

Both boys glared at her defiantly but she held up her hand, killing the protests on their lips with a question. "Can either of you conceal your chakra signature?"

Naruto's mouth opened then closed then opened again. "Well…"

"There's a chance he can't even sense." Sasuke said with the same disregard he always reserved for the jounin.

"Sensory is difficult but don't underestimate Kakashi-sensei." Sakura warned. There were very few jounin who didn't know how to sense, and those who couldn't usually had another way to keep track of the enemy.

Naruto huffed. "Hah, the old man is totally lame."

"Says the one who got defeated by a butt poke." Sasuke remarked.

Naruto's face reddened and as he drew himself up for a comeback Sakura felt a headache brewing behind her forehead. She kept her posture from slouching, sitting straight with her legs folded underneath her, perfectly composed. Faintly she hoped the boys would take her as an example to remain dignified.

"Didn't you get buried in the ground with only your head above it, huh bastard?" He nearly shouted.

Sasuke scowled in response. "At least he had to resort to using actual jutsu, loser!"

So much for hope.

"Why don't I get you some water, flower bud, to help you sprout from the dirt." The blond taunted, having no actual reply to Sasuke's previous comment.

"WILL YOU BRATS SHUT UP!" A voice yelled from behind Naruto's walls, sounding crystal clear.

Sakura leaned in closer to her teammates, partway happy to see them stunned into silence. "Naruto-san, are those your neighbours?" She whispered in horror.

The blond in question shook off his surprise and said. "Yeah from downstairs, but they're rarely home."

"Are your walls made of paper or something?" Sasuke hissed quietly.

The blond shrugged.

"Is there a chance they overheard everything we said?" Sakura asked urgently. "Including our plan?"

"Uh…"

"Your apartment sucks, we need a better meeting place." Sasuke still kept his voice quiet and eyed the garbage littered around them.

"Hey, if you know a better place than just say the word and we'll go there." Naruto's voice grew to an alarming volume again, making Sakura cringe.

Sasuke's eyes grew guarded but Sakura could still read them, he did know a place, one that he was reluctant to share with them. Not that she blamed him for it. If it was where she thought it was, she wouldn't show her teammates around a place that caused her so much grief either.

"Why don't we all think about how we're going to make this plan work, first." She got up from her place on the ground and patted off the not so imaginary dust. "I know I will."

"Until tomorrow, Sakura-san." Naruto waved.

Making her way out of Naruto's questionable neighbourhood, Sakura thought of their plan. She knew it was a bad idea and she was the taking the most risk, at least technically speaking. Naruto and Sasuke both had no parental figures in their life, Kakashi didn't count. They could be punished by the village or their sensei but at home there was no one to scold them. And let the disappointment of a parent be a child's most daunting punishment. They were unattached by such strings. But despite still having both her parents, Sakura was just like them. Izuna made it so.

She wanted this, the scheming, the excitement. And she couldn't find it in herself to care about the consequences.

She passed a training ground that was more woods than field and came to a halt. There was a girl, perhaps a year or two her senior, leaning against a tree. There was something about her posture that made Sakura stop, something… guilty. The other hadn't noticed her yet so Sakura started moving with a slow casual strut. Without addressing the older girl, she made her way to the tree line.

"This training ground is taken." She said the moment she noticed Sakura.

"This is a shortcut to my home, I always take it." Sakura lied easily. The other girl started readjusting one of her twin buns in an attempt to appear at ease.

"Well you'll just have to go around today." There was enough of a pause there for Sakura to know she was fabricating a lie. "My teammate values his privacy when training his clan techniques."

"Is that so, then perhaps he should occupy a private training ground that his clan would doubtlessly provide?" Sakura commented airily.

Behind the girl's eyes, Sakura saw the cogs in her head working to stay on top of the situation. "How about a spar?" Her headband was still fairly new, still shining brightly, not dulled by scratches and dents yet. The cloth showed a bit of wear making the headband older than Sakura's. The kunoichi was likely more experienced than Sakura but just as likely still a genin.

"A spar to pass through?" She mocked just to rattle the girl. "If I must." Sakura might have graduated later, she still had all the memories of a seasoned war veteran to give her an edge.

Again the girl gave her a calculating look, startled by her opponent's confidence and looking for an advantage to press. Her eyes went up and down Sakura's body before saying, "Taijutsu only."

If she was a lesser ninja, Sakura would have grimaced. The other had found her weak spot in her lack of defined muscles. As the challenger the older kunoichi had the right to choose the rules of their spar and Sakura could either decline and thus forfeit or accept and fight.

"As you say." Pride made it so that she couldn't back down. From the moment both kunoichi started backing up her mind was working overtime, trying to come up with a winning strategy.

"I'm Tenten, by the way." The older girl offered before charging her. Sakura sprung back with a grunt, narrowly avoiding a blow to her liver. "Sakura." She hissed through clenched teeth as she was forced to back up from a high kick.

Tenten moved to punch her throat and Sakura saw her chance. She brought up both her hands to block the older girl, intending to twist the limb and bring her out of balance. But from the moment the blow connected with her waiting hands, a startling thought entered her mind. She was going to lose.

The raw power behind the punch knocked both of her hands back, right against the original target and while it was softened by Sakura interference, she still chocked. Tenten wasted no time pressing her advantage and knocked Sakura's legs from under her with a low sweeping kick. Many instinctual responses filtered through her head, genjutsu, exploding tag, kunai, kawarimi. Not one of those involved pure taijutsu, it was just not her forte. And from the look of Tenten's pronounced wire-like muscles it was at least partially her specialty.

The analytical part of her mind told her to back down, that she just couldn't win without her usual tricks but the _Uchiha_ part of her found giving in simply unacceptable. She would win or die trying. She launched from the ground with the ferocity of a cornered tiger, swiping her hand towards the other girl's face in a claw like motion. Instead of racking her nails across her opponents face, she released some of the dusty earth she had scooped up in her eyes. Startled Tenten took a step back while wiping her eyes, Sakura used this moment to land a solid punch in her gut. She didn't double over like Sakura hoped she would, there was only a light 'oof' that escaped her lips as she took another step back. Sakura quickly recovered from the disappointment and went to kick Tenten's knee, trying to bring her down. Her foot was swiftly intercepted and the older girl easily pushed the appendage up causing Sakura to overbalance and fall butt first to the ground.

Searing embarrassment coursed through her, she had hit the ground twice now. By any standards she had already lost, pathetically at that. The mere thought was...

"Tenten, we're leaving." A cold voice rang out. Sakura looked up to see another young genin, this time a boy, emerge from the treeline. She didn't know him but his milky white eyes were a dead giveaway. Hyuuga. A feeling of misplaced superiority came over her as she crossed eyes with him. She knew where it came from, Izuna had been told his whole life their eyes were nothing but a weak extract of the sharingan.

"Finally." Tenten laughed, though there was something uneasy in her voice. "See you around Sakura, lets spar again some day!" She turned to run after her apparent teammate, who didn't pause in his long strides.

Her anger burned so hot it scorched her on the inside. "Yes." Sakura answered firmly, the word full of promise, "Lets." The older genin threw her a distracted wave over her shoulder while Sakura picked herself of from the ground. There was a deep desire to run for the library and study taijutsu counter moves until she dropped but she knew it wouldn't be enough. Though she never neglected her physical skills she never really took the time to adres her obvious weak point either, trusting her talents to carry her through. The kind of power training she needed would take time, time she just couldn't balance with everything else she wanted to learn.

She needed a quick solution, something to give her punches... extra bite. Her furrowed brows slowly rose into a contemplative expression. There was something she could try but first she would cross the training ground that gave her so much trouble to begin with.

Briskly she passed the treeline and marched into the miniature forest. A glimpse of white caught her eye and as she turned she saw the Hyuuga princess resting against a tree. No, Sakura assessed, not exactly resting or leaning. The girl stood off-balance, like she had been shoved into it. Sakura narrowed her eyes and could swear she saw tear tracks. Had it been anyone else, she would have scoffed at the sign of weakness, ridiculed them for such a display of emotion. But Sakura sort of, for a lack of better terms, liked the shy girl. It was not uncommon for them to eat lunch together back in their academy days.

Hinata never had any delusions about her strength, unlike most if not all kunoichi in their year, and like Sakura she preferred to stay unseen and unheard. It's not like she was all that weak, she scored second kunoichi of their year, she was just not what a clan head should be. And while Hinata wasn't cut out to be a ninja, she also never really had a choice.

As Sakura prepared herself to walk away she noticed Hinata's eyes peeping out from under her bangs, assessing her. For some reason it compelled her to say something. If she could speak unfiltered she would have advised to use the cursed bird seal on jealous branch members who didn't know their place next time. But the Hyuuga's sealing practices weren't exactly common knowledge these days so she settled for hidden wisdom. Hinata wouldn't have appreciated her first idea anyway.

"How is it that people always end up mistaking being quite for being docile." Sakura shook her head. Hinata didn't deem to respond, or perhaps didn't know how, but she straightened herself and nodded in her direction. "G-good evening, Sakura-san." The words barely carried over to the pink haired girl.

She returned the greeting and they walked out of the training ground together in companionable silence. The two losers of the day, Sakura thought sourly, reminding herself that there was work to do.

At that moment something Naruto had said earlier that day popped into her head. _'The other teams will be miles ahead of us by now.'_ She pursed her lips and asked politely. "How is tree walking going for your team? Are Kiba and Shino as slow as the boys on my team?"

Hinata pushed her fingers together. "Well... Shino's c-colony demands a lot of his chakra and Kiba is-s, eh, Kiba so... but they are almost t-there."

As she had though, the other teams _were_ getting ahead of them. Kakashi hadn't started on tree walking yet, just team drills and basic physical maintenance. "I guess we girls have a natural advantage." She idly commented. As they parted ways Sakura planned her course of action, still bothered by her defeat. She would need to start practicing the genjutsu she had been studying by the daily if she had any hope of advancing as a ninja, her other abilities needed polishing but first... she had one more stop to make.

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 **So what do you think of team seven's interactions? Do they still seem realistic despite Sakura's peculiarity's? Also, the first crack in Sakura's ego. Well since a Ino's friendship obviously never happened, Sakura kind of needs another rival, don't you think?**


	6. Chapter 6

**I love Naruto and Sasuke banter... And reviews, I also love those a lot!**

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'A wave of water crashed into the continuous torrent of fire Izuna had set upon his enemies, signaling _his_ arrival. As the steam cleared, Izuna sheathed his tanto and mock saluted the white haired Senju. "Fashionably late as ever, I see." Izuna said pleasantly among the smoldering corpses he left in his wake.

Around them, members of both clans scrambled to run for cover. Their clashes were legendary and nobody wanted to be caught in the middle. Tobirama Senju narrowed his eyes and drew his katana, effortlessly falling into his opening stance during the motion. Izuna's sharingan spun lazily, taking in the movement he had seen so many times before. The Senju always waited for Izuna to draw his own blade so he wasn't going to rush.

As if distracted he let his eyes wander, falling on the battlefield around them not allowing himself to feel anything as his eyes caught the corpses that were just too small to be right. One day he was going to eradicate the Senju and it all wouldn't matter anymore.

Izuna sensed Tobirama's frustrated chakra as he took a threatening step forward, prompting him to react. The man always wore his emotion's on his sleeve, well at least on his chakra if not his face. "Hm, who have I killed this time? Your cousin? A friend... best friend perhaps."

"Shut up." Tobirama snarled but still didn't charge him. Not his kill then. Sometimes Izuna wondered if the Senju enjoyed their battles half as much as he did. Finally Izuna summoned his own sword from the seal on his left wrist, preferring not to carry the longer blade around. He remained an open stance ready for anything. His sharingan noticed Tobirama shifting his balance forward and it wasn't solely because of his dojutsu that he knew what was to come.

He lifted his blade to block the incoming strike but before their katana connected Tobirama spun into a low strike, having expected the block. Izuna rushed forward into his guard and kicked his arm, releasing his own sword and quickly reclaiming it in a reversed grip, changing his pattern. Naturally the Senju was too familiar with his style to be confused by it and recovered from the kick by turning with its momentum and striking on the other side. Izuna managed to block him in the nick of time.

As they fought, there was no place for stray thoughts or insulting small talk, the pace was too fast. At their level neither men could outdo each other with simple skill alone. Victory depended on who made the first mistake. And it couldn't be him… it just could not be him.'

Sakura awoke with her mind sharp, leaping out of bed to grab her notebook. As she sat down with a pencil in hand she could feel the image of the mark on Izuna's wrist already fading from her mind's eye. Within a few minutes she had sketched something that _might_ have been the seal from her dreams. She held up the book to inspect her work but it was no use. They had never covered sealing in the academy, she had no way of knowing whether what she drew was correct or even possible. Still, it could be useful to carry around weapons that way. More carefully she penned down the rest of the details she could remember from her newly recovered memory.

Snapping the notebook shut, she placed it back in her drawer with the others and collected her preparations for the day, along with her brand new weapons. They were not lethal weapons but had a brutality to them that would fit Sakura nicely, they were designed to make fistfights ugly and painful: Two spiked brass knuckles that came with a pair of sturdy leather gloves they could be attached to. The gloves were padded on the inside to avoid rebound damage from the weapons. She put them on but stored the knuckle dusters in her pack. Wiggling her fingers, she realized the gloves resisted her hand movements but only by a little. The leather had to be worked in.

Tucking her plans from last night under her arms along with her own notebook on genjutsu theory, Sakura made her way to the guest room and scaled the wall with minimal struggle. On her way to the team's meeting spot on the bridge she went through all the hand signs in a systematic order, trying to make the leather of her gloves more supple.

"Good morning, Naruto-san, Sasuke-san." Sakura greeted politely.

"Morning, Sakura-saaan." Clearly Naruto was getting tired of the suffix again.

"Hn." And the Uchiha had lost the few manners he gained over the past few weeks. Green eyes drilled into his until he curled his lips into a sneer and said. "Greetings." With way to much sarcasm. It was followed by a mutter that sounded suspiciously like 'annoying'. That didn't make what Sakura was about to do any easier.

"Come over here, the both of you. I have some important news." Not one to start conversations often Sakura wasn't surprised when both boys moved in closer. "So I've been hearing around and Naruto was right. The other teams have been getting ahead of us."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed in pure rage. "Don't tell me you've been advertising our lack of training to the other genin."

"What?" She said in a hiss, genuinely insulted. "Do I look stupid to you? Give me the credit that is due, Uchiha, I'm better at intelligence gathering than you'll ever be ." Not once did she raise her voice but the venom in it was clear.

The Uchiha took a step forward. "If you think you're so superior to me, how about you prove it in a fight."

For from his intentions, Sasuke's comment actually reminded Sakura why she started this conversation in the first place. "Actually, that's one of the things I wanted to discuss." She said smugly. "We mustn't be outdone be our peers."

"Yeah, of course not!" Naruto piped in. "But how do we catch up without Kakashi sensei on board? Should we start with the plan?"

"Idiot, don't mention that here." Sasuke snapped.

"He's not around." Sakura assured. "But keep it for the meeting anyway, Naruto-san. As for your question. I know all the things the other genin are just starting to learn." Perhaps a little exaggerated but what was the harm in that.

"How's that even possible." Sasuke questioned disbelievingly.

"Unlike other's I read ahead and I don't stop looking for answers just because they aren't easily forthcoming. No, I try and experiment until I get something right and then keep trying to perfect it." Sakura allowed herself to feel pride over it, despite her loss of the day before. "But that's were our problem lies, isn't it. Years of hard work, years of mistakes and painstaking effort, and I'm supposed to just spoon feed the answers to you? That's not going to happen."

Naruto spluttered. "B-but you said-"

Cutting him off, Sakura asked, "Are you familiar with the expression 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine'?"

"Quid pro quo." There was something akin to respect in Sasuke's tone. "What do you need?"

"Yeah, Sakura, anything for you!" Naruto hollered and Sakura pretended the drop of the suffix wasn't on purpose.

"Like I said, developing jutsu and other kind of skills correctly on your own is difficult. All I need are a couple of dummies to practice on to speed up the process. Then I can learn things faster and teach that you as well while I learn new things and the cycle continues."

Both Naruto and Sasuke seemed quite excited by the prospect, in their own unique way. Sasuke smirked with fire in his eyes and Naruto loudly whooped in enthusiasm. Did they even hear her call them dummies?

"Do we have a deal?" She asked. To her surprise the boys looked at each other communicating something to which she was not privy to. "Believe it!" Naruto shouted and Sasuke nodded along.

"Good." The first step to their mutual agreement was assuring dominance so they would respect her teachings and also… she needed bolstering after her abysmal performance the day before. "Let's see where each of us stands by a spar."

If she didn't have their full attention before, that did the trick. "The rules?" Sasuke inquired intensely. Meanwhile, Sakura slipped her brass knuckles on, spikes gleaming in the sun.

"Anything goes." Sakura said simply. "The spar is over when one of you manages to subdue me." They leaped away from each other, even Naruto was fully focused.

"On my mark." She raised her hand. Honestly, they knew she had been planning this, she could have prepared this spar for days, could have rigged the training ground last night and she said everything was alright to use. Sakura wasn't sure she'd agree to terms like that but knowing these boys, she had counted on their willingness to prove themselves. She dropped her arm.

Like during the bell test Sasuke disappeared from view and while she was flattered he treated her with the same caution he had first given Kakashi, it also happened to be pointless. She knew exactly where he was, not only because of her unidentified sensory ability but because of her normal skills as well. Sasuke hadn't learned how to hide his chakra signature yet.

Naruto, sadly hadn't learned from the bell test either, though his approach may have been better given the situation, and leaped right at her with a couple of clones in tow. She punched the first one in his stomach and feeling him disappear into smoke under her hands was oddly satisfying.

Even so, taijutsu hadn't suddenly become her forte overnight, though her punches sure did have more bite to them, and she didn't want to risk a brawl between herself and a dozen tangible clones. Also, she couldn't tell the real Naruto apart from the fakes so she couldn't aim for anything that might be dangerous. Throwing a couple of shuriken, that would not dig as deep as kunai, dispelled five more clones and a kick to the knee another. There were four clones and one real Naruto left. She had to sidestep a couple of his own shuriken but Naruto wasn't really putting any effort into his throws. He generally preferred to use his fists so he controlled the damage he would do.

Once there were two Naruto's left, one of which managed to clip her in the shoulder, Sakura started a series of hand signs. No matter how useful the shadow clone jutsu was, in the end defeating Naruto was child's play. Once her genjutsu connected it was game over, she just hadn't wanted to cast it over twelve different people. The drain on her chakra would not have been worth it. Two though, wasn't so hard. She could have used a two dimension, regional genjutsu to confuse the clone group but while she knew the theory, no ninja worth their salt would use a technique they hadn't mastered yet in a serious spar.

She took a moment to appreciate the effect as two Naruto's tried to catch the glimpses of movement they saw in the corners of their eyes.

Then Sasuke moved in a throwing motion and Sakura knew there were shuriken perhaps even kunai, on their way. Turning towards the onslaught of weapons, she decided she needed to be somewhere else, fast. The shunshin was as of yet too advanced for her but who needed that when she knew the kawarimi no jutsu. She swapped herself with a leaf behind Sasuke and he just managed to turn his head, eyes wide with surprise, before he was kicked out of the tree. He righted himself during the fall and landed using his chakra to absorb the strain on his knees.

Obviously he had been pre-trained by his family before they died. Sakura stayed on the branches as she threw her own weapons at him. With a single kunai, he managed to deflect each of them, being too advanced to be outdone in shuriken jutsu. She let him turn the tables and had to dodge his projectiles, running a winding path along the bark of several trees so as to show of her chakra attachment. Her chakra was still in tune with the previous hand sings and so she easily cast the same genjutsu without using them. Though she changed the original design to kunai that came in from several directions. His instincts caused him to turn briefly before realizing his mistake and bringing up his hands in the release sign. But that short moment of disorientation was all Sakura needed.

She body swapped with a twig on the ground and jumped into a spinning kick. The side of her foot first connected with his earn then his neck. He stumbled sideways and she swept his feet from under him. During his fall, Sasuke angled his face towards her and spat out a giant fireball. With no time for a replacement so Sakura cartwheeled out of the way, the heat lightly burning her skin underneath her clothes.

She narrowed her eyes in his directions having not seen him perform the hand signs. He was better then she thought, faster too. By the time she had righted herself, he was back on his feet and charging her. She smiled and brought up her hand. No matter how good he was, she was better. With a tug, the wires she had planted responded to her will and Sasuke was pulled snugly into a tree, arms bound to his sides.

Well if glares could kill… "When?" He grit through his teeth. And she knew all too well the bitter feeling a loss brought with it.

Sakura cocked her head. "You didn't think I'd actually waste so much energy just to dodge your weapons like that, did you?" She kept her voice flat and professional, mature ninja did not gloat. "Also, I got Kakashi-sensei to thank for that trick, though he rigged the wires holding me so I was assaulted with shuriken every time I put too much strain on them. These won't do that, don't worry."

Sasuke grimaced lightly at the thought. She could have continued, could have explained that he could have reused his fireball jutsu to at least melt the wires holding him but it felt too much like bragging to sit right with her. A talented ninja did not need to fish for praise. Besides, she doubted he knew how to keep a jutsu open so it was empty advice at best.

With the adrenaline from the spar slowly dying down, Sakura's senses opened up again. First she noticed the pain from her burns , then she noticed the familiar presence skulking nearby. Of course that was the exact moment Naruto decided to tackle her into the ground. Her chakra automatically responded to cushion the fall and she wrapped her limbs around Naruto to force him in a choke-hold.

"Naruto, stop it. He's here." She hissed in his ear. He went limp and she released him. When she saw his face-splitting grin she couldn't help her annoyed response. "So you tackled me, congratulations. That's still a far cry from subduing me." She ignored Sasuke's amused snort. Now that she was so close she could feel the strangely controlled pattern of his chakra. "Wait a second… you never released the genjutsu?" She couldn't even begin to think of the dangers of that approach. You couldn't just ignore the things you saw around you, what if one of them happened to be real? "That's just-" "You called me Naruto." He said happily.

"Spur of the moment." She defended, cursing herself for the slip-up. With a gesture of her hand she loosened the wires holding Sasuke. A tap on Naruto's shoulder and a burst of her chakra removed the genjutsu. "And what's more important, sensei's here so steel yourselves."

"He's earlier than usual." Sasuke commented.

Naruto pulled a face. "Why, what a great observation, genius."

"Shut up, loser, you can't even read the time."

"I can!"

Sakura just barely kept from groaning.

Kakashi on his end was having a field day. Not only had he come to the conclusion that Sakura was likely not being trained by shady old men with ulterior motive, there was still too much emotion in there, however carefully hidden. And if she was he could still save her, like others had been saved. But he walked on his team to find them acting like… well a team for once.

When he shunshined into the clearing of their training ground, the first thing he noticed was a notebook and two small scrolls but he ignored them in favor of the flaring chakra signatures of his genin squad nearby. He found Naruto deeply confused by a genjutsu, a rather simple one that he recognized to be Sakura's. He put two and two together and realized they had been sparring. With the help of another shunshin, he was just in time to watch Sakura winding a path through the trees while simultaneously preparing a trap.

Thanks to a cleverly placed kawarimi and a sign-less genjutsu, she managed to get into Sasuke's guard. A more physically apt ninja could have ended the fight then and there but Sakura had to dodge out of the way of the giant fire ball, Sasuke spat at her. Just when Kakakshi was really getting into their spar, Sakura decided to end it.

Her performance solidified his other suspicion, Sakura was a prodigy. The techniques she used didn't appear all that eye-catching or special at first glance but if you looked closely, you could see the secrets hidden underneath the simplicity.

First of all, she had learned a trick he had showed her only once and he was now somewhat convinced she did it on her own. It made him wonder how frightfully fast she would grow under professional tutelage. And second, Sakura had kept the flow of her chakra opened to her genjutsu so she could perform it without redoing the hand signs which showed off an understanding of chakra that most people would never even dream to have.

With the fight winding down Kakashi went back to something that had tickled his curiosity since he arrived. The scrolls and the notebook. The little book was filled with theories and complex calculations on genjutsu some of which was beyond his understanding as he had never really bothered to specialize in the subject. The scrolls though, they were interesting. Kakashi was surprised to find they were training schedules for Naruto and Sasuke.

Sakura walked into the clearing with a feeling of dread, he was reading the scrolls she had spend the better part of the night on.

"Your late!" Naruto shouted as per habit. "Though not as late…" He grumbled.

Kakashi's eyes lazily kept scanning her scrolls. "Hm? I had a hunch I wanted to be here at this time." Then he held up one scroll in each hand, the content rolling off onto the ground. "Training up your minions already, Sakura?"

Suppressing her irritation at seeing her work pooling on the grass, Sakura answered. "Call it an exchange of favors."

A spark of his chakra and both scrolls caught fire in his hands. For a moment Sakura was speechless as she witnessed hours of work crumbling into ash. "These are inadequate." Then she found her voice.

"What!" She filled that single word with as much disbelief and rage as possible. "Your teaching is inadequate!" A part of her was appalled at her outburst, never had she openly questioned her superiors as she remembered a time in which that was called treason.

He took the insult calmly, though and explained himself. "I can live with the tree walking, it's a pretty fundamental skill. But sensing, advanced chakra enhancements and suppressed chakra molding? Sakura, most people take a long time to master any of this, some never do. This isn't exactly what you should start out with."

"But we're not just _some_ people, sensei." Sakura protested. She had looked into the history of team seven and knew exactly the kind of pressure that was on this team. All the hokage and hokage candidates had stemmed from a team seven, save from the first and the second ones.

The boys watched the argument with interest, Sakura wasn't usually so vocal about her opinion. And though Naruto was moved by her support for the team, he didn't want to interfere.

"I know." He chuckled. "but everything great is built on the basics and as you three haven't mastered those yet…"

Sakura frowned while Sasuke scowled. And Naruto…

"That's crazy, we passed the academy didn't we!?" He shouted, clearly offended.

Kakashi pointed his finger at the blond boy. "Your taijutsu form is a mess, I'm surprised you haven't broken your hands yet with punches like that and you couldn't recognize a genjutsu if I told you, you were under one." Naruto spluttered but before he could recover Kakashi pointed at Sakura.

"Your form is perfect but that's about the only thing you got going for you. Stop shirking on your physical training." He delivered it with an eye smile and a tilt of his head.

And lastly he focused on Sasuke. "With how much chakra you waste, it's a surprise you can manage a fireball at all. Also, I have never seen an Uchiha falter because of a genjutsu like that before. On a scale from one to ten, that genjutsu scored minus two in complexity." The boy in question kept quite but the searing glare he send Kakashi his was almost enough to burn.

"I suppose we shall kill a couple of birds with one stone and start on the tree running exercise, right?" He promptly showed them how it was done and told them to try it running. Naruto and Sasuke stalked off with renewed determination but Sakura held her spot.

"I already know it, Sensei." She stated after noticing his raised eyebrow. He pulled out a kunai and said, "Start running, Sakura." With an evil glint in his eyes. Perhaps he had felt insulted after all…

They all ended up tied to a tree at the end of it but at least they got some actual training done.

XXXXXX

 **So a longer chapter with some action in it. You have a social case with a poor taste in music to thank for this update as it is keeping me up.**

 **Naruto: His fight may have seemed a little weak but he was the dead last for a reason. Most children find growing and learning hard without help and I believe it could have caused for Naruto to be behind his peers, only sheer determination carries him through most of the time.**

 **Sasuke: I find him difficult to write and it shows. But he was top of his class so I had to make him at least better than Naruto... I don't think I strayed from his canon skill level all that much.**

 **Sakura: I hope I'm not making her overpowered but despite the lack of jutsu, Sakura has the mindset of a war veteran and can outmaneuver most kids easily. She knows how to use what she has. Oh and guess what, her ego survived last chapter... xD**

 **Please review and tell me what you think.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Yo, back again. I'm updating somewhat consistently but between short vacations, my continued Office word problems (yesterday it worked, today it didn't and so on), a job swap and social obligations because I'm not a cave bat, I can't promise a chapter every week. I'm aiming for a chapter every other week but even that may not always be realistic.**

 **Remember I'm a hobbyist, though I might one day decide to go pro (who am I kidding?), today is not that day.**

 **Anyway please enjoy and do review!**

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The evolution in time was interesting for Sakura who had more than glimpse of an era well before she was even born. Medical ninjutsu and technology had improved over the years, scientific research into chakra had been non-existent but flourished now under the village system. The art of sealing though had actually regressed and it wasn't because of a lack of information either.

Learning the principals of sealing was actually like learning a new language that had no similarities with your own, difficult but hardly impossible. It was about as diverse as a full language as well and making a seal was like constructing a sentence. But who wanted to put the time and effort into learning something so complex when they could just buy industrially made seals in bulk for a reasonably cheap price?

Funnily enough that was the exact reason Sakura found herself surrounded by old Uzumaki sealing grimoires in the dead of night. The appeal of knowing something most people did not was too great to resist, that and now that her teammates were intimately familiar with her genjutsu, thanks to Kakashi sensei's new training regimen, she needed a new ace. He hadn't been very pleased when she brought reading material with her to take the dull edge of her physical training and she had been forced to relay her genjutsu theories. On the bright side he had helped her work through them and she was now capable of three dimension genjutsu both personal and regional.

Something clattered of her window, startling Sakura. Ready for anything, she gripped the kunai under her pillow and counted to ten. Nothing happened, she risked a brief glance towards the ghost presence she felt in the corner of her room but didn't feel anything. Again something hard bounced of the window, creating a sharp noise. Sakura had worked diligently to minimize the range of her sensory skill so she didn't have to feel it every time somebody passed their rather busy street, now she expanded it and found… Naruto.

Another tap of what Sakura figured was a pebble sounded trough her bedroom. Throwing her curtains aside, she opened her window and stuck her head out.

"What?" She hissed.

"Hey, Sakura!" He bellowed happily. She furrowed her brows and not only because it was hopeless to get him to use the suffix again but also because of the volume he used.

"Keep it down, Naruto. Normal people are asleep right now." She whisper-shouted back. Then, not trusting Naruto to keep himself in check, she swung one leg out of her window and walked down the wall. "What could be so important that you feel the need to wake me up in the middle of the night?"

"Your lights were on." Naruto pointed out.

Without missing a beat she responded. "Completely besides the question."

For a moment he looked like he was ready to argue but then surprisingly withheld himself. "Well the teme and I thought about it and… if your offer still stands we're in."

She felt her eyebrows rise. "But, sensei got you started on the tree walking exercise? And he made it clear he doesn't want me meddling with your training."

"Like you said to him, we're not just anyone." In his eyes she found a plan for when she said no, and a second one, and a third. He continued. "And we're already behind. We need your help catching up and perhaps, to get ahead."

She considered it, but honestly there was only so much she could practice on her own. During their spar a few days earlier she made mistakes and they could only be corrected by hard earned experience. "I assume you know a place were we can train, away from prying eyes." It was not a question.

His face split apart into a blinding grin with a bit too much teeth in it. "Of course, Sasuke is already there! Let's go before the duck-brain gets impatient."

"Shhh." She pitied his neighbors. "And wait here, I'll get my gear." And another outfit, since her sleepwear wasn't going to cut it."

after she suited up, she locked her own window and left through the back one, emerging once more before her teammate. For once her hair was up in a simple ponytail and she didn't wear her full gear. "Lead the way, Naruto." He gladly did so with a loud 'alright' and 'believe it' to make her wince. He led her through the streets as the rooftops were not available for him yet without the chakra control he needed. It took her a few minutes to realize what direction they were going in. Surely Sasuke wouldn't. She wasn't sure if you could get herself to enter the place, with that many ghosts likely to linger. When the Uchiha district was in sight, Sakura pulled her presence sensor as tightly around her as she could, limiting its range and steeling her resolve. Naruto could not know something was up, his lips were too loose.

To her relief, Naruto veered to the left and ran around the district. They halted at a small training ground that was surrounded by trees, a couple of boulders were placed in the clearing and Sasuke stood on top one. A deep look of concentration marred his face and before Naruto could open his mouth, ten kunai were drawn by his hands. He jumped high, twisting in mid air while releasing some of the kunai then he threw the rest to clash into the first ones and alter their course. All ten hit their mark.

He landed on the next boulder to assess his work. "Wow! That was awesome!" Sasuke's head whipped towards Naruto in surprise. The blond scratched his neck awkwardly before correcting himself. "I mean, I can totally do that. Nothing about it."

Sakura could feel their rival spat coming from miles away and moved to intervene. "Hm, that could be useful. Why have I never seen you use tricks like that?"

Sasuke treated her to a hard stare. "Because it takes too much of my concentration, it's futile to try."

"Then train until it's second nature." She shrugged, honestly it was simple enough.

Obviously Sasuke didn't think so. "Enemy move around, practice targets do not." His voice was strained as if he was explaining to a toddler that rice belonged inside its mouth and not on the floor.

Sakura responded by pronouncing her words extra clear. "Your loud teammate over there can make more than ten shadow clones that do, in-fact, move."

Sasuke blinked.

Naruto who had perked up on hearing his name, tried to recall what his teammates had been discussing. "Oh yeah, I can make a hundred of them if I try hard enough!"

More kunai appeared. "You know, I think Kakashi was onto something with this whole teamwork thing." Sasuke said smugly, knowing full well that wasn't what the man had meant. Naruto grinned in response.

Sakura laid a hand on the blond's shoulder. "That's why I don't think Kakashi-sensei will be terribly opposed to me giving you tips for the tree walking exercise while he's there. In the mean time, there's something I need to teach Naruto that you and I already know." Sasuke nodded at her as Naruto made a dozen clones to help Sasuke with his accuracy.

She took him to the cover of the tree line before sitting down with her legs folded beneath her. "Wait... why are you sitting?" Naruto asked a hint of disappointment leaking in his voice. She sighed. "Remember our last spar, Naruto?" He nodded.

"I trapped you in what is called a genjutsu. Do you know what that is?"

He frowned. "An illusion right, they covered that in class."

She was glad he knew at least that, basic as it was. "They also covered and tested how to break one."

When Naruto's frown deepened she knew he hadn't attended those classes, nor had he been offered remedial training. "Okay." He said simply.

Without warning she cast a genjutsu, same one as before and he tensed and started looking around frantically. "It's not real, Naruto."

Slowly, he directed his eyes towards her again. "So, what do I do now?"

"Close your eyes. I'm going to break you out of it. Try to take note of how I do it." She instructed. From her experience she had gathered that giving Naruto a theoretical explanation wasn't going to help much. He responded better to a hands on approach.

"How can I see what you're doing with my eyes closed?" The incredulous expression on his face was mildly insulting. A sudden urge to beat him on the head took her by surprise. As a well mannered person she didn't do such things.

"It's not something you can see with your eyes Naruto. You're going to have to feel it." The annoyance in her voice was clear though.

Finally he closed his eyes and she laid a hand on his shoulder. Deliberately slow, she pushed her chakra into his system and disrupted the flow of the genjutsu. He gasped when he caught onto it. "So, what did I do?" She quizzed.

"Uh, you used chakra?" He scratched his neck.

Sakura supposed this was about as much as she could expect from him. Not that Naruto didn't have a talent with chakra, learning the shadow clone jutsu on his own was a testament to that, just the theory went over his head as he was more an impulsive user. He knew what she did, he just didn't know how to put it in words.

"Right..." She offered him a smile. "Simply put, I send a pulse of chakra through your system to disrupt the flow of your own since it was being altered by the genjutsu."

At least he was listening attentively, she had half believed that the subject would bore him to the point of distraction.

She continued her lecture, trying to keep it simple and with smaller words. "It's easier to break somebody else out of a genjutsu than yourself because your flow will be different than theirs no matter what you do. Physical pain also works for less advanced genjutsu but don't cripple yourself in a battle, okay."

"Less advanced? What's the genjutsu you used on me?" He asked curiously. "Super sneaky high level stuff right?"

She laughed knowing that while he didn't know much about genjutsu he was still saying it to praise her abilities. "Not advanced at all. Just a one dimension, personal illusion."

Of course that didn't tell him anything. "Huh?"

"There are five dimensions in genjutsu, well six actually but such a level is rarely acquired. Each dimension is one of the senses; sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and chakra sensory for the geniuses." Izuna had developed genjutsu that fooled chakra sensory specifically to counter Tobirama's unparalleled skill in the subject. Sadly, Sakura couldn't claim to be at that level yet as it was also difficult to practice on her own and neither of her teammates knew how to sense.

"A single dimension, like I used, is the easiest. It doesn't matter which sense you use but sight and hearing are usually what beginners start out with. The personal part kind of explains itself, it's used on a single person. Regional is cast on a area and catches anyone within." She had to stop herself there, it was her favorite subject and she could quickly lose herself in it.

Naruto sensed her passion for the subject and nodded along. "Uhhuh, that's cool. What are smell and taste good for though?"

For a total of five seconds, she attempted to hold her tongue but ultimately had to give in. "Mostly to complement the rest of your illusion but also to cover up for poison you've put into somebodies drink or food." Before he could ask more she said. "Alright tea-time is over, let's get back to work."

For the next two hours they worked on recognizing and dispelling genjutsu. Naruto got the dispelling part down fairly fast, recognizing a genjutsu, especially subtle ones, was more difficult. It was important though, as an enemy would always try to make a genjutsu look like reality. Periodically, Naruto had to send out fresh clones, the timing of which was somewhat consistent. As Sasuke got better with aiming, Naruto got better with dodging.

After that she called it a night and Naruto waved her goodbye with a yawn. She was about to leave herself when she caught Sasuke still training despite the absence of Naruto clones.

"You know, if you appear before Kakashi all tired and sleepy he's going to know something's up." She warned.

The silence lasted long enough for Sakura to give up and turn around before he answered. "I'm improving too slow." He gritted out.

"To kill your brother." It wasn't a question. For some reason, the fact that the Uchiha heir had murdered the rest of his clan safe his little brother wasn't exactly kept quiet by the government. Even Naruto probably heard the news. She glanced back over her shoulder to look at him. His shoulders were tense, his hands were shaking and eyes were directed elsewhere, seeing things no one else could.

"If you ask Naruto, he'll probably train with you every day and night. He won't even ask any questions."

He focused his attention back on her. "Why would he do that?" The harsh tone in his voice was there to cover up his raw emotional state. Still it rubber her the wrong way, if their was one consistency in their team it was that Naruto would jump if it helped his teammates.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Because he's lonely? Because he's that desperate for human contact that he'll even brave your insults and condescending attitude without complaint? Because no one else will give him the time of the day? Honestly, pick one, they all apply." A part of her enjoyed exposing that tiny drop of guilt entering his eyes. "To him, we're his only friends and he doesn't have any family. Although I wouldn't consider myself a good friend to him. Would you?"

It remained quiet so she went to end the conversation with one last remark. "If you asked him nicely, he'd probably let you brother run him through so you could have a shot at defeating him."

She walked.

"Would you?" The voice behind her was surprisingly steady.

She turned around with eyebrows hidden somewhere in her hairline. What kind of question was that?

His face was a combination of both smugness and frustration that only he could manage. "Don't think you're the only one who's onto to people, Sakura. You like us. You say Naruto's lonely? Have you ever considered yourself? Maybe you're so in-tune with how Naruto feels because you're like him."

She blanched. Did she like them? Surely that couldn't be? Sakura took a few moments to analyse herself and her feeling towards her team to try and come up with an answer.

"I wouldn't." She said. "If you asked me tomorrow to join you in your quest to kill your brother, I wouldn't."

She stared him in the eye as he schooled his features to be expressionless then she continued. "But ask me in... say a year or two, maybe three, and I could probably defeat him on my own."

"Impossible." He snarled. "Are you that conceited that you actually believe you can take on the man that destroyed one of the mightiest clans of Konoha in a single night?"

Hypocrite much. She scoffed. "It doesn't take a whole lot of skill to stab your allies in the back. It doesn't take much effort to kill people who think they are safe in their homes surrounded by family, trained ninja or not. It wouldn't surprise me if he went door to door, inviting himself in and slicing their throats while their backs were turned. The only hard part about killing a clan during peacetime is silencing your conscience and I'm going to assume he doesn't have any."

His eyes were wide as he remembered how few bodies were on the streets and how many were in their houses. Sasuke wanted nothing more than to hide from the disgust and pain he felt but she pressed on.

"Itachi is not a god, Sasuke. An intelligent psychopath, certainly, a genius, maybe but not a god. You were eight, impressed by him the same way first year academy students are impressed by genin."

She waited for a reaction and was only a little surprised when Sasuke, ashen faced and trembling, turned tail and ran. Maybe she took it a little too far, she would find a way to make it up to him somehow. Drat.

she really did like them.

'The Senju had managed to intercept one of their supply lines, coincidentally it was the one providing for Izuna's platoon. The resulting situation was… dire. They had lived of the land for a bit, but it had been stripped clean quickly and the remaining wildlife fled, there were no nearby villages and foraging wasn't very productive during this time of the year. Izuna had gotten to a point were he shoved any spider or bug that wasn't poisonous down his throat. That while he was a renowned picky eater.

Izuna was sitting on a tree stump, tiredly awaiting news, any news, from his father. He knew the man was working on securing their supply lines but at this point, Izuna feared it would be too late. They still had to fight off the opposing Senju, the opposing _fed_ Senju, and the Uchiha were failing under the strain of their disadvantage. On top of that the hunger did weird things to his head.

A hand clamped on his shoulder and Izuna was only just able to restrain himself from knifing the guy behind him. "Commander, we found dinner." One of his trusted subjects said and Izuna could feel his mind clear. "Really? The gods must be smiling down upon us." He replied accommodating. Honestly he didn't care for chit chat right now, he wanted to eat.

Sure enough a tantalizing sent entered his nose when he neared the clearing they were stationed at. "Smells good, what is it? He asked.

"You won't believe this: a deer and it's foal." Kenichi replied ecstatically. He was right, he didn't believe it.

Izuna was careful to keep a polite smile plastered on his face. There was just no way a creature as shy and elusive as a deer would be anywhere within a ten mile radius from a war zone. Silently, Izuna made his way over to their resident field cook to catch a glimpse of what he was preparing his giant cauldron-like pot. Something like beef-stew, with deep red meat like a horse's. The cooks lips moved but Izuna couldn't quite catch what he was saying, not even from lip reading as the angle wasn't right. He sneaked closer.

"Take that, you Senju swines."

Izuna smiled, even had to keep himself from cracking up. Later that night some men complained about it's tough, wiry structure. But he quite enjoyed the feeling of well honed muscle grinding between his teeth.

Too bad he never got to tell Tobirama.'

Sakura awoke feeling nauseous, tasting blood on her teeth. Her last few dreams had been deceptively mild, consisting mostly of sparring sessions with his family. She shivered before attempting to compose herself. War could get so ugly, something she'd almost forgotten. Izuna himself was a particularly messed up example. Forcefully dispelling the dream from her mind, she got ready for the day, not even writing her dream down.

Elsewhere in Konoha, Sasuke had decided to wake early so he could hopefully catch his female teammate alone. Sleep had not been an option for him with all the things running through his head. Sakura had made some valid points. It was true that while he had been aspiring to kill Itachi for years, a part of him hadn't actually believed it could be done. Itachi was a prodigy and Sasuke had spend enough time around the man to realize, he himself was not. He was talented and smart for a twelve year old but when that man had been twelve he was more intelligent than most senior strategists. Or maybe Sasuke just thought that because at some point in time he had looked up to his brother, like Sakura suggested.

It was all very confusing but that didn't take away the fact that Itachi achieved things before Sasuke even if one accounted for the age difference. Unless Sasuke made ANBU in the next year, of course. All in all, Sasuke was almost certain that Itachi was in truth prodigal but... so was Sakura. Back in the academy, she had not once outdone him in anyway. But then came the bell test and he got to observe her going toe to toe with Kakashi, deflecting his powerful genjutsu with laughable ease, luring him into cleverly designed traps, sticking to bloody trees with her feet and touching a bell. On top of that Kakashi had taken her serious, for just a moment. The question was, why did she hide her abilities in the academy? With a frown he shoved his useless thoughts aside. He had come to a conclusion last night, the rest was just a distraction.

He was in luck when he found her already in the training ground and purposefully stalked towards her. Her eyes met him and he found them, cautious, guilty perhaps.

"In two or three years, Itachi's mine to kill." He said strongly. With her hand, she motioned him to continue, knowing he wasn't done. "By then, I would gladly accept your help." Saying it didn't feel as embarrassing as he had first thought it would. Part of that could be faulted to the fact that they were alone.

She held up one finger. "First off, good morning, Sasuke."

He rolled his eyes, she and her stupid manners. "Good morning, Sakura."

"Hm, I'll make a proper gentleman out of you yet. Second, good, do you intent to involve Naruto?" Wiggling two fingers she send him a questioning look.

That was another difficult matter he had pondered during the night. "Not today, but probably." His shadow clones were just too useful to pass up on and Naruto was undoubtedly loyal. Sasuke could probably betray the village, tear down it's wall and wage war upon it's residents and the moron would still forgive him. He couldn't help as the same way Sakura couldn't help being such a good-natured know it all. "Also, we don't speak of this matter until it's time, ever. Understood?"

"Not even to make contingencies?" She inquired nonchalantly.

He shrugged equally nonchalant. "Only when I feel like it."

"Hm, blond teammate approaching." She said.

Sure enough Naruto arrived not a minute later. It only took Kakashi about an hour to show up, during which Sakura aided them with the tree-climbing exercise. Kakashi trained Sakura in taijustu and endurance while the boys worked on several useful chakra control exercises. Days continued like that until the boys could join her in the physical exercise part, in the evenings they often met up to spar. Kakashi noticed how his students advanced in leaps and bounds and decided to step up his training in advance yet again.

To get to the desired subject he decided to sit in front of Sakura while she was doing her crunches and flip to a new bingo book page every time she completed one. This itself wasn't unusual as Sakura required mental stimuli during her exercises. Most often they'd discuss chakra manipulation theories of all kinds, even the art of fuinjutsu on occasion and battle strategies were not uncommon either.

Today he had instructed her to categorize the missing nin into those team seven, minus sensei, could handle and those they should probably run from. They were on page fifteen and finally he noticed it started to dawn on Sakura. She frowned which he found amusing, so they're were some things little miss well-informed didn't know.

"Say Kakashi-sensei, why are there so many genin in the bingo book? You'd think such a small sized limited book would show only the missing nin with actual skill?" Her teammates were slowing down on their crunches to listen in.

"Glad you asked. What would you say if I told you that chuunin and jounin are merely titles and not a testament to a persons skill. Explain to me how and why that is?" His mood skyrocketed when his genin all gave him incredulous looks. They were so adorably naive.

Sakura concentrated deeply even halting in her crunches which Kakashi allowed. "Well it makes sense doesn't it?" She then said as she saw the light.

Full of disbelieve, Sasuke asked. "How?"

"Yeah, what he said." Naruto added.

"Money." Sakura explained simply. Kakashi nodded in approval and motioned for her to explain. "Chuunin are more expensive than genin. Shinobi get bonus payments which is dependent on the rank and duration of the mission they accepted but they also receive a base remuneration in case there is something that would keep a shinobi at the village. Chuunin get more than genin."

This counted for jounin as well and Kakashi himself was a prime example. He hadn't applied for missions since he took them on and didn't participate in D-ranks nor was he listed for them but he was likely enjoying a nice fat salary. He got rich without risking his life for it. Sakura assumed that was why jounin volunteered to be tied down to some snotty fresh genin.

"That isn't all there is to it, but good thinking." Kakashi allowed.

Never one to back down from a challenge Sakura started brainstorming. "Chuunin are leaders. There's no need for as many leaders as followers. No... there are plenty of full chuunin teams and then what about jounin. So-"

"Actually." Kakashi interrupted. "That was the original purpose for chuunin but Konoha is wealthy and it projects that to both its clients and enemies by its high number of chuunin."

Sasuke joined in. "So if it was just a matter of money, nearly everyone would be kept on a genin pay. Chuunin and jounin are actually a symbol of the village's prosperity and strength."

Then Naruto caught up with the flow of the conversation. "The rank of a missing nin doesn't actually reveal much. I guess it would be better to judge them on the mission's they have taken while still loyal."

"Indeed." Kakashi nodded proudly. Clever little wolves. "Though the bingo book was actually just an exercise for Sakura. Think, why would I tell you this?"

They looked among each other for answers. As the village ranking system was after Izuna's time, Sakura didn't have a clue.

Kakashi was relieved to find they had some wising up to do mock sighed."In the last chuunin exams, 205 genin participated but only twelve made chuunin. In other words getting promoted is not easy."

All three of his students paled. Those rates were worse than the final genin trail, which made sense but still.

"Now, a large part in promotion is popularity and frankly that of team seven is abysmal."

They all exchanged accusatory glances. Now that wouldn't do.

"If only the teme would be a little friendlier." Naruto insisted.

Sasuke countered with, "If only you did your tasks right, dobe!"

"They are so immature." Sakura complained.

Kakashi shook his head. "Sakura, Sasuke, you two have absolutely no people skills." Then he moved to Naruto. "You are plenty social but yelling at a client is bad form no matter how unreasonable they are being."

Technically they already had favorable promotion chances as they were the only students of the famed sharingan Kakashi, though they didn't need to know that. Handing kids everything on a silver platter was just a recipe for disaster.

Their faces spelled mutiny so he decided to drive the point home. "If you three plan to make it chuunin somewhere within this decade, you better step up your game. As of tomorrow your training intensifies and we will start to accept C-ranks. You are dismissed, I expect you to pick up on the meaning of the word professionalism between now and tomorrow afternoon. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei." All three chorused.

 **XXXXXX**

 **longest chapter to date. Also I lost part of this while writing it, which was very discouraging. If parts seem wonky that's why. We have finished most of the isolated character building and will start moving up the plot soon (yes there is one.)**

 **I would like to thank all the people that reviewed! Each one warms my heart and gives me so much inspiration.**


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